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January 1, 2012
The Death Of Pretty
Who can forget how pretty Olivia Newton Johnwas at the beginning of Grease. Beautiful and innocent. But her desire to be desired leads her to throw away all that is valuable in herself in the vain hopes of getting the attention of a boy. In the process, she destroys her innocence and thus destroys the pretty. What we are left with is hotness. Hotness is a consumable. A consumable that consumes as it is consumed but brings no warmth. -- The Death Of Pretty by Pat Archbold
Posted by gerardvanderleun at January 1, 2012 11:44 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
There is no place in society for pretty and innocence anymore, just varying degrees of "hot". Kids (and grown-up kids) are bombarded with images that range from suggestive to perverted all day, everyday. How can "innocence" survive even if "pretty" survives?
Posted by: RedCarolina at January 1, 2012 2:23 PM
My issue (and I'm male, so it might be surprising) with the portrayal of "pretty" as presumably meant by some here is that "pretty" denigrates women also; as being ineffectual, semi-braindead Stepford Wives as an ideal of womanhood.
Fail there. Women trying too hard for streetwalker chic, ditto. Harder still and not often achieved is the combination of femininity and strength; a fictional example is Ripley from the Alien movies, and a possible "real-world" example (possibly somewhat contaminated by Hollywood glamour) is Kari Byron from Mythbusters.
I can easily see either of these two on a frontier somewhere. Very easily. And, yes, I couldn't possibly cope with either of them.
Posted by: Fletcher Christian at January 1, 2012 4:26 PM